[11/4/01] As Mack Henry ran up the final hill at Saturday’s state cross country meet, he kept looking over his shoulder to see where Resurrection’s Paul Ross was.

Then again, he could have been trying to make sure he was ahead of the purple wave of St. Aloysius runners coming up behind him.

Henry passed Ross on the final hill to win the boys’ Class 1A individual title and five St. Al runners finished in the top 11, bringing the school its first state title in cross country since 1996.

“We’ve worked harder this year than any other year, and it showed today,” said St. Al’s Phillip Hattaway, who finished third. “That was how we trained to do it, to run together … It was all individual efforts, but coming together as a team was what won it for us.”

Henry took the lead in the first mile of the 5K race and held it until Ross passed him with about 1/10th of a mile to go. Ross had used up too much energy trying to catch Henry, however, and the St. Al runner passed him on the final uphill stretch and won by two seconds.

“I was waiting for him to make the first move and get tired,” said Henry, who crossed the finish line in 17 minutes, 59.5 seconds.

Hattaway came across about 50 seconds later, in 18:52.4, and Jeff Rottman followed in sixth place in 19:07.6. Scott Fife was a step behind Potts Camp’s Charlie Smith with about 100 feet to go, but managed to dredge up one last kick and beat Smith by a step for eighth place.

“I was so happy I beat him. He was toying with me the whole race,” Fife said. “I just wanted to beat him so bad. There’s nothing that can describe what was going through my head.”

John David Hosemann came across in 11th place, in 19:31.5, to clinch the team title for St. Al. No other school had more than three runners in the top 12, and St. Al easily beat Resurrection 26-47. Potts Camp was third, with 64 points.

St. Al’s other two runners, Eric Williams and Shawn Williams, finished 37th and 45th, respectively. The Flashes’ top five finishers each earned all-state honors.

“It’s a neat feeling seeing them all up there like that. I told them before the race there’s no doubt they’re the strongest team out there, and they ran like it,” St. Al coach Donald Roesch said. “They’re a different group of kids.

They’re getting put through a nightmare day-in and day-out,

and they enjoy it.”

Vicksburg High and Warren Central didn’t fare well in the Class 5A meets, but they did have some individual highlights.

VHS’ Jessica Morris earned all-state honors with a 12th-place finish out of 123 runners in the girls’ meet, while WC freshman Brad Gaines was 15th out of 100 boys.

VHS was ninth in the girls’ team standings with 244 points, while WC was 12th with 289. WC edged VHS in the boys’ standings, finishing in 13th place with 295 points. VHS was 15th with 353 points and Moss Point was 14th with 319. Tupelo won both the boys’ and girls’ meets.

Willie Powers, who was expected to be VHS’ top finisher, was hampered by a leg injury suffered during a basketball game earlier this week and fell back to 86th.

“He went through the first mile OK, then after that he started hurting real bad,” VHS coach Eric Solis said.

“It was not a good way to end the year. I thought we’d do a lot better. But the girls did real well.”